Where didn’t you go ?

[Roger Metcalf]

Hi Des,I was lucky enough to visit NZ on all except one voyage during my apprenticeship and one trip as a junior engineer.I met my wife on my first trip to Dunedin.I emigrated and joined the police and upon walking the beat in Dunedin recognised many a seaman who had jumped ship as they seemed to jump out to me and helped many to return home to the uk as distressed british seamen. Cheers Roger Metcalf

[Duke Drennan]

Went through the Suez many times,around the Cape to Australia,New Zealand and Japan.We did a lot of tramping in the Med. Italy. Spain, Gibraltar.
My most enjoyable and rememberable time was up to Sweden in the winter, absolutely fantastic !!

Did you ever get up the Gulf of Bothnia to Lulea at the very tip of Sweden. It was an iron ore port but a beautiful scenic run up through the islands up there.
Strange thing about that place was that the ore came from the same mines as the ore shipped from Narvik in Norway. There must be one helluva hole in the ground up there.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Roger.
We lived in Whangarie from 2000 to 2010 went over to escape the worst heatwave we have had in Aus since we arrived from NZ in 1974.
We bought a house in Onerahi, Clotworthy Place on the left of the rise from Whangarie, came back here 9 years ago.
As for blokes jumping ship, I was on the British Builder from Nov55 to Sept 56, the only trip we did to NZ ended up with more than half the crew jumping, there were 8 in New Plymouth alone. But the best was to come most of the engineering mob jumped in Dunedin even the Chief engineer; who I later met while on the coast, he had become a trotting owner and driver .
Cheers Des

[happy daze john in oz]

Did you ever get up the Gulf of Bothnia to Lulea at the very tip of Sweden. It was an iron ore port but a beautiful scenic run up through the islands up there.
Strange thing about that place was that the ore came from the same mines as the ore shipped from Narvik in Norway. There must be one helluva hole in the ground up there.

In Lulea December 64, bloody dark all day, cold and the only grog ashore was wine in some restaurants.
They had a 'near beer' of sorts but then the country was about dry.
Now it has dozens of pubs all over the place.

[Michael Wild]

We often discuss the far off places we sailed to but where didn’t we go. When I think back to those days and read various posts on here, I feel fortunate to have done a lot of the “good” runs that we talk about. However, we rarely, if at all, talk about where we’d like to have gone but didn’t. There are exceptions to this of course, such as “ Rapido in Rosario” aka Capt Kong. For me, I never sailed through the Suez Canal and one other place I’d love to have visited was Pitcairn Island.
Anyone else miss out on a good run ashore.

Interesting post. Managed to pack a lot into my 7 years at sea including USA/Canada Gulf, East and Lakes coasts, West, South & East Africa, Red Sea, Gulf, Indian sub-continent, Seychelles, Maldives, Pacific islands, Oz, NZ but no South America, Japan, China or strangely enough considering where I did get to either the Panama or Suez canals (although latter was closed during my time)

[John Arton]

Duke
That iron ore shipped from Narvik comes from a massive mine in Kiruna in Swedish Lapland and is still producing huge amounts of iron ore to date. The underground workings are so extent that the town is actually sinking and is in the process of being moved to a safer area. There was an excellent documentary on the rail line linking Kiruna to Narvik on the yesterday channel recently. Due to the importance of iron ore in manufacturing, when the line was built one bridge across a gorge was built to be easily be brought down by blowing up a section of it should Germany invade Sweden. The iron ore trains haul something in the region of 7000 tons at a time and have the most powerful and eco friendly electric locos, that on the loaded run use self generating electricity to change the batteries with sufficient energy to power them on the return empty voyage.
On the subject of canals, has anyone ever done the Gota canal from Gothenburg up to lake vannern? Absolutely fabulous scenery and the locks at trollhatten are something to see.
The best parts of going to many ports we actually went to, was not the port itself but the scenery en route getting there. Thousand islands going up to Toronto, Swedish archipelago, the islands of the Philippines and Indonesia, great barrier reef transit, Kiel, Suez, Panama canals, the Mississippi River, belle isle straight and gulf of saint Lawrence. People pay thousands of pounds to get a quick view of those places on cruise liners, yet we saw them all, experienced it all and even got paid for doing it. What a life.
Rgds
J.A.

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Duke
That iron ore shipped from Narvik comes from a massive mine in Kiruna in Swedish Lapland and is still producing huge amounts of iron ore to date. The underground workings are so extent that the town is actually sinking and is in the process of being moved to a safer area. There was an excellent documentary on the rail line linking Kiruna to Narvik on the yesterday channel recently. Due to the importance of iron ore in manufacturing, when the line was built one bridge across a gorge was built to be easily be brought down by blowing up a section of it should Germany invade Sweden. The iron ore trains haul something in the region of 7000 tons at a time and have the most powerful and eco friendly electric locos, that on the loaded run use self generating electricity to change the batteries with sufficient energy to power them on the return empty voyage.
On the subject of canals, has anyone ever done the Gota canal from Gothenburg up to lake vannern? Absolutely fabulous scenery and the locks at trollhatten are something to see.
The best parts of going to many ports we actually went to, was not the port itself but the scenery en route getting there. Thousand islands going up to Toronto, Swedish archipelago, the islands of the Philippines and Indonesia, great barrier reef transit, Kiel, Suez, Panama canals, the Mississippi River, belle isle straight and gulf of saint Lawrence. People pay thousands of pounds to get a quick view of those places on cruise liners, yet we saw them all, experienced it all and even got paid for doing it. What a life.
Rgds
J.A.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Duke
The best parts of going to many ports we actually went to, was not the port itself but the scenery en route getting there. Thousand islands going up to Toronto, Swedish archipelago, the islands of the Philippines and Indonesia, great barrier reef transit, Kiel, Suez, Panama canals, the Mississippi River, belle isle straight and gulf of saint Lawrence. J.A.

The navigators among us were the luckiest, as not only did we live among the scenery we studied the local topography for landmark navigation purposes, also enjoyed my rock dodging days around the UK and Continent passing scenery and traversing channels unavailable to deep water vessels

[Colin Pook]

Hi Duke. I always wanted to visit China, Japan, Canada, and anywhere on the west coast of the united states. Spent most of my time with ESSO which took me through the Suez Canal around 24 times. Have to content myself
thinking about Carribean ports, Australia and New Zealand, Russia, Norway, South Africa and many places that are lost forever from my memory. Favourite place==MALTA.
Take care my friend,
Best regards,
Colin
R684420.

[Dennis McGuckin]

Ah yes Malta,
I went back there some time ago.
Asked the taxie driver if the 'Gut' was still in operation.
He said no, and was shocked that I knew about it.
The wife was with me, so I didn't tell him some of my stories.

[Keith Tindell]

I was in one of the pubs in the Gut, in the early 60s i think, was still going strong then. While i was in the pub, one of many, a lad from my village walked in, he was in the Royal navy there, and of course a few beers were downed, later i took him back on board, and his face when he saw our accommodation was a joy, i was a SOS at the time, and in a twin berth cabin. I wonder what year the Gut finished, kt